Cheap Diamonds

by Norris Church Mailer

  Please reconsider about writing to Cassie. I love you and miss you so much. Do you think I’m awful?

  Your bad-girl friend,

  Baby

  31

  * * *

  SIN

  This was horrible. I’d sort of had a crush on Father Leo, too, when I was his student teacher, but I never thought he would actually do anything with any woman, he was such a dedicated priest and he was a cool teacher, too. It was sure different from the Holiness church I belonged to, which had a long list of sins, swearing being right at the top.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Father Leo,” I remember saying to him after I had gotten to know him better, “but I have to tell you my parents were pretty nervous about me coming up here. I think they believe all Catholics are going to hell.”

  “Why do they think that?”

  “Well, y’all drink, and that’s a big sin. Y’all pray to Mary, and we don’t believe in that. There’s a lot of things they think will send you to hell that Catholics don’t seem to think twice about, like dancing and playing cards. Our pastor, Brother Wilkins, is always saying that if you have one single sin on your soul when you die, it’s down to hell with you because only the totally pure will go to heaven.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “It’s pretty harsh to think God would send people to torment forever for going fishing on Sunday or drinking a beer. And I can’t make myself believe all the Buddhists and Jews and African natives and everyone else in the world are going to hell and just a few Christians who haven’t gone fishing on Sunday will be in heaven.”

  “Heaven’s a big place. They won’t have a lot of people to talk to, will they?”

  “No, and half of them won’t be speaking to each other anyhow, if it is like it is in church. Somebody is always mad at somebody else for taking over the Sunday-school Christmas pageant and not putting their kid into it or something.”

  He laughed.

  “Your church doesn’t have a patch on us. I’ve seen Catholics get into fistfights over bake sales. But there might not be any hell at all. Or what if the atheists are right and it’s just lights out when you die? Then it won’t matter anyhow, will it?”

  “I guess it won’t. But I don’t like to think that.”

  “No, I don’t, either. I believe the teachings of the Church, or I wouldn’t be in this job, but I also believe in Karma—what goes around comes around—and I believe in reincarnation.”

  “You really think we’ve lived before?”

  “And will live again. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Isn’t birth itself a miracle? That tiny egg and sperm uniting to make a whole human being. Why is it more of a miracle to be born more than once? Is a baby who dies at birth never given another chance? Is that all the life they get? I like to think we live over and over—like a driver getting out of an old car into a new car—and we learn lessons from each life until we finally get our degrees, so to speak, and can go to heaven.”

  “Do all Catholics believe in that?”

  He laughed. “Are you kidding me? For them it’s heaven, hell, and purgatory. It’s better to keep my beliefs to myself and toe the traditional line in this outfit. So you can’t blow the whistle on me.”

  “Father Leo, there’s one big thing about the Catholics I don’t understand. Why can’t priests get married? Preachers in every other religion can.”

  “Ah, that’s a hard question. And a good one.” He took out one of his Cuban cigars and put it in his mouth but didn’t light it, for which I was grateful. “They could at one time—did you know that? Saint Peter, who was the first pope, had a family. Saint Paul encouraged bishops to be faithful to their wives.”

  “So what happened?”

  “It’s hard to say it was one single thing. Before Christ came along, the Goddess was the supreme being. Woman was revered for being able to give birth, and sex was sacred. Then the male God began to dominate, and in the early church, A.D. three or four hundred, a few men like Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine came to believe that women were poison, à la Eve, who got cozy with the devil and seduced poor Adam, innocent doofus that he was, and the outcome was wicked sexual intercourse. Guys like Old Jerome and Augustine saw the body as evil, the spirit as good; a war was constantly being waged between the two, and the body had to be conquered if the spirit wanted to go to heaven.”

  “That’s crazy. The human race would die off if everybody was celibate!”

  “Oh, I think they knew that not everyone could hack celibacy and there would always be plenty of humans. They both, by the way, came to this philosophy late in life, after having, by all reports, a robust and wicked sex life when they were young. So much easier to be celibate when you’re old and can’t cut the mustard anymore, you know.

  “So the two of them helped put the celibacy issue on the table and it rocked on for centuries, debated pro and con. Finally, what decided it, I think, was not morality but good old greed.

  “Grateful parishioners would give land or money or livestock or whatever to their bishops in payment for favors, or in the hope of greasing their way to heaven, and the bishops were getting rich. Since priests and bishops were still marrying and having families, they would naturally leave their properties and money, as well as their titles, to their offspring, but by making a mandatory celibacy rule—voilà—no offspring, so the goods and land went directly to church coffers.

  “In 1139, all clerical marriages were pronounced invalid, and the children declared bastards, who couldn’t by law inherit anything. Anybody who didn’t like it was excommunicated, which was the same as sending them to hell. The Church got enormously rich, and celibacy for the clergy has been the rule ever since. End of story.”

  “But that was such a long time ago. You’d think they would change it now.”

  “To the contrary, my dear. At Vatican Two, just five years ago, it was reaffirmed. I have it memorized. ‘Let them’—the seminarians—‘be warned of the very severe dangers with which their chastity will be confronted in present-day society…may they learn so to integrate the renunciation of marriage into their life and activity that these will not suffer any detriment from celibacy.’”

  “Did you ever have a girlfriend, Father Leo?” He lit the cigar. I realized I’d overstepped.

  “Let’s just leave it that the celibacy rule is not why I became a priest. It was in spite of it. If you want to play for the New York Yankees, you don’t go trying to change the rules of baseball. And I do want to play.”

  Did he still want to play? If so, what was going to happen with him and Baby?

  32

  * * *

  GIRLFRIENDS AND GENTLEMEN

  The commercial was in the can, as they say. It had been three days of hard work, in fur, under bright lights. Sal had to keep repairing my makeup for real. I’m afraid I do have pores. It was so weird to have all those people hovering over us like we were movie stars. I could see getting used to it. First, there was the director, who talked to us about our motivation and had us say the lines over and over, told us when to look at each other and how to look, when to smile, how to move, when to simper, when to flirt—although I instinctively kind of knew that anyhow, which he was really happy about. There were script girls and cameramen and a girl who just polished my earrings and kept my clothes from bunching up. If we wanted coffee, there was somebody to run and hand us a cup with sugar and milk, just like we wanted. There were several just looking, and I never really knew what they did. It was pretty crowded. We had to be there by seven in the morning for hair and makeup, and a lot of the day was spent waiting around for them to get the lights set and everything ready. By the end of the day I was exhausted and the only thing I wanted was to go home and get in a hot tub. Anybody who thinks this stuff is fun and games ought to hang out on a set for a day.

  I knew they were going to dub us, and they did. As much as I practiced with the TV girls, I still sounded southern, and Lale didn’t even try. But they did a great job
of matching the movement of our lips to the words, which was so weird to see. Lale had an English accent, like James Bond, and I sounded kind of Swedish. I guess it was because of my coloring. Most of the real blondes we had in the agency were from Sweden, and Gunilla Knutson had made such a big splash with her “Take it off, take it all off” Noxema shaving commercial that Swedes were hot. Well, let’s face it, blondes of any kind were always hot. So it was French perfume with a Swedish/British accent done by Arkansas rednecks, what the heck. The Parvu people had a little dinner for us after the screening, at a fancy French restaurant on Fifty-second Street near Fifth Avenue called La Grenouille, which means “The Frog,” although I didn’t see frog legs on the menu, and then they took us in a limousine to a nightclub called Le Club that had fireplaces and deer heads with huge antlers on the walls, which was kind of weird in New York City, and we danced until after midnight. Although a lot of my model friends went all the time to the clubs, it was the first time I had been, and you would have thought I was a Karo nut pie out on a picnic table and the men were flies. Guys kept asking me to dance and cutting in when I danced with Lale, which he did not like at all. Finally he just sat and glared at me while I danced with a guy who was a rich stockbroker or something like that, probably old enough to be my father. It was pathetic. But I’d never been the belle of the ball before and I loved it.

  “Dance with somebody else, Zack,” I said when I got a break. “There’s tons of women checking you out.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do, Cherry. I’ll dance when I get ready to.”

  “Excuuuse me, Mr. Gripey Gut.” But I felt kind of sorry for him, and when “Let It Be” by the Beatles started up, I held out my hand to him, we went back out onto the dance floor, and he held me tight. He smelled so good, like Tribute, which I’d always loved. It was the same cologne Tripp used to wear, and it woke up some little part of me that had been shut down all these months. I slumped and snuggled into his neck, forgetting for a minute that he was off-limits, and he gave me a little kiss on the ear. What was the matter with me? I had to stop this. The print ads would be coming out any minute, for the Christmas rush, and I still hadn’t written Cassie. I made up my mind to do that when I got home, and not wait a minute longer. It was already probably too late and she would hate me. She must be still depressed over losing Lalea. That image shattered any romance beginning to bud, and I broke away from him. I could hear Suzan’s voice saying, “You’ll find out that friendship takes a backseat to love every time.” Not this time.

  “I have to go, Zack. I’ll try to come over to the loft in a couple of days and work on the painting. See you.” I practically ran off the dance floor. He just stood there and shook his head. He never knew what to make of me. Which was probably why he was interested.

  Mrs. Digby was still up. As usual, she peeked out to see who was coming up the stairs that late.

  “Hi, Mrs. D. Can’t sleep?”

  “I was just checking to see if my door was locked.”

  “I’m glad it wasn’t. Can I come in for a minute?”

  She was still dressed, so I figured it would be all right.

  “Would you like some tea, dear? Some cookies and milk? I just made some chocolate-chip tonight.”

  “That would be great, Mrs. Digby. Thanks so much.” She made the best chocolate-chip cookies, with little niblets of toffee in them. I dug in as she got me a glass of milk.

  “You’re all spiffed up. Hot date?”

  I had on this great long dress of Quiana nylon in a wild electric-blue, burgundy, and brown print, that had an empire waist, long pirate sleeves, and a tobacco suede short fringed vest over it. I loved Quiana—it flowed and felt great and was practically indestructible.

  “Not really a date. They took us out to celebrate finishing the commercial.”

  “I can see you had a good time. There are stars in your eyes. But I also feel there is something bothering you.”

  You can’t fool somebody who is a little bit psychic.

  “You’ve had a lot of boyfriends, right, Mrs. Digby?”

  “My, yes. I tried to count them one time, but kept forgetting their names. Isn’t that awful, when you can’t even remember your beaus’ names? I should have kept a diary all those years, but frankly, if you’re taking the time to write it down, you aren’t living it.”

  “I think so, too.”

  “Are you having man problems?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Aurelius?”

  “For one. I can’t figure him out. Why doesn’t he like me?”

  “He does like you. He’s just afraid you’ll reject him, dear. Don’t you know that men like Aurelius are rejected all the time? The one place they are in control is with women, and he just won’t take a chance that he’ll fall in love with you and you won’t return it. He’s not used to women like you.”

  “Ah. Well, that’s one way to look at it, I guess.”

  “You said ‘for one.’ Is there another young man in your life?”

  “Not exactly. But there’s this guy model I’m doing the Diamonds & Ermine job with. I know he likes me but it’s complicated. He used to go out with an old friend of mine, but he doesn’t know that I know her. She doesn’t know I’m working with him. Plus, he treated her pretty badly. I mean, for one example, they were engaged and he got her the cheapest ring the jewelry store had. True, he didn’t have much money at the time, but this was ridiculous. You could hardly see the diamond with a magnifying glass.”

  “That’s a bad sign. Most gentlemen, if they had to, would take out a discreet loan to get their girlfriend a diamond. I’ve never trusted a parsimonious man.”

  “You’d be right. He left her practically at the altar when she was pregnant.”

  “Oh, my. I assume he’s attractive?”

  “Extremely. Unfortunately.”

  “That is a problem. Back in my day, if an interesting man came along, the friendship between girls came in second, and we all understood that was just the way it was.”

  “So you would go for the guy in spite of the friendship?”

  “Well, that would depend on whether she was in love with him and how good a friend she was. And how much you were willing to hurt her.”

  There was always a catch to everything decent.

  “In that case, he’s off-limits. So back to Aurelius. What would you do with Aurelius?”

  “I’d knock on his door and make the first move. If you are successful with Aurelius, you won’t want to be with this model fellow, will you?”

  Mrs. Digby was a wise old bird, but I wasn’t sure I wanted so many gentlemen friends that I couldn’t remember all their names. There were words for girls like that back in Arkansas. Although what I was about to do had words to go with it, too. I’d stuff that into the crowded closet in the back of my mind to worry about later.

  By the time I got to the top of the stairs, I heard the saxophone. I stopped off at my apartment, brushed my teeth, freshened up my makeup, took a deep breath, then went right up to Aurelius’s door and knocked. The music stopped. He opened the door. It was dark and I couldn’t read the look on his face, but it was too late to turn back.

  “Can I borrow a cup of sugar?” He stepped back and I went in. His place was bigger than mine, but it felt like home. One small lamp glowed on a table in the corner.

  “This is a nice surprise. Can I get you a glass of wine? Or would you prefer sugar?”

  “Wine’s fine.”

  I’d had a couple of glasses of wine earlier, but was cold sober now. He already had a bottle open. He took a crystal goblet out of a cabinet and poured it full of garnet-colored wine and handed it to me. His hand touched mine. On purpose. I took a big swallow.

  “What’s that you were playing?”

  “‘Autumn in New York.’”

  “It’s beautiful. Go ahead and play some more. I just wanted to watch you for once.” I sank into the chair next to the bed and he picked up the sax and played while I drank. I didn’t
know much about jazz, but the sound was mellow and lonesome, and with the wine, I began to relax. He played until my glass was empty. I didn’t know what to do next. I’d made the first move but didn’t have a second one.

  “Come here.” He laid the horn aside, held out his hand, and pulled me down beside him on the bed. He stared at me for a long minute, like he was trying to read my mind, then gently put his lips on mine, melting me into a puddle.

  “I won’t reject you, Aurelius, I promise I won’t,” I said as we came up for air.

  “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “Let me learn. You said you wanted me. You said you wanted to throw the table over at Joe Jr.’s and take me on the floor. Well, now there’s no table….”

  I started unbuttoning his shirt. I didn’t care. It had been more than a year since I had been with Tripp, and it all had built up.

  “Wait right here. Don’t go anywhere.”

  He went to the bathroom and I heard water running. He was taking a shower. I lay back on the pillows and wondered what to do. Maybe I should slip next door and take a bath, too. I’d worked up a sweat with all that dancing. But he had said to wait right there. In a few minutes, the door opened and he came out all damp and steamy, wrapped in a towel. Then he took off the towel and stood there lit by the lamp, a long stretch of beautiful brown muscles. His penis was darker than the rest of him, so black it was almost purple. It was certainly a good size, but not huge like I had heard. I let him unzip my dress, unlace my suede boots, and pull off my tights. I wiggled my toes against his belly and liked the way they looked there, their nails painted black-cherry red. He seemed as amazed at me as I was at him.